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hushbats · 11 months

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forget everything (and I’m starting with you) Part II

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Part I

Steve ran – lungs and legs burning from the lack of oxygen. It was going to get him. It had already gotten everyone else. Steve had no choice. He had to leave them behind. He had to be faster, but his legs weren’t working right. He didn’t seem to be making any headway. A disconcerting growl from behind heightened his panic. It was gaining on him. He was going to die here if he didn’t move faster – die alone. He ran around the next corner and came to an abrupt halt. A dead end. A small boy with long, untamed hair, wearing a top hat and dirty, old clothing stood facing the wall. Shit. The sound of growling and gnashing teeth was closing in on him but he couldn’t look back. If he didn’t get himself and the kid out of here right now, they were both going to become the monster’s chew toy. He couldn’t save his friends but maybe he could save this kid. He reached out for the boy.

“Kid! Hey kid! We need to go- ”

A flash of big haunting dark brown – almost black eyes.

Then suddenly, he was at the bottom of his empty pool, trapped, with no way out. Black, gnarled vines snaked across the walls and floor of the pool. The sound of the monster following him was gone, but the eerie silence was almost worse. The air was dead and difficult to breathe. His heart was thumping so hard, he thought it might just break through his ribs.

“Hello!” he shouted in desperation. His voice echoed, ricocheting off the walls of the barren pool. “Is anybody out there? Help!”

“There is no one. Only me,” a withering, reedy voice answered from behind.

He whipped around to find Barbara Holland – or what was left of her – standing there, staring at him with venom and hatred in her clouded, dead eyes. The bodies of his friends – Nancy, Jonathon, the kids – all torn apart and bloodied, faces twisted and frozen in a wretched scream of fear, and left strewn at her feet.

“Barb?” Steve’s heart dropped into his stomach.

“Look what you did to me, Steve,” the corpse of Barbara Holland said, taking a step toward him on bloated, rotting legs. “Was it worth it? Just to get your lecherous hands on Nancy?”

She continued to advance slowly, spitting venomous words at him.

“I shouldn’t be surprised. King Steve always gets what he wants. Attention, adoration, popularity…girls. But not love. Never love. Isn’t that right, Steve?”

Steve swallowed back the tears threatening to fall, unable to move.

“You don’t deserve love after what you did to me. Who would love someone like you? A manipulative, spineless, selfish little rich kid. You’re poison, Steve Harrington. And you’re only going to do to them what you did to me.”

Steve squeezed his eyes shut. No, no, no. There was no way this was happening.

“LOOK AT ME, STEVE! LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO ME! WHAT YOU WILL DO TO THEM!”

Steve cowed, frozen to the spot, but didn’t dare open his eyes.

“This isn’t happening. Someone will come. Someone will come for me. It’s okay. Someone will save me,” he chanted in prayer under his breath.

“No one is coming for you, Steve,” Barb’s voice whispered right in his ear. “You don’t deserve to be saved. You deserve to die alone like I did.”

Steve’s breath hitched as a slimy hand touched his cheek.

His body unfroze, recoiling at the touch. He turned to flee only to be met with the strange boy again – still in his top hat and ratty clothes, facing away from him but this time, holding a shiny gold pocket watch open in his right hand.

“I’m waiting, Stevie,” like he whispered it right in his ear.

Another flash of deep, brown eyes and what felt like a tap from a warm hand to the forehead.

Steve bolted upright with a scream dying on his lips. He was panting, sitting in his sweat covered sheets. The remnants of a nightmare and the eerily familiar brown eyes quickly fading from memory, like water from a sieve.

***

The downfall of King Steve Harrington began when one Jonathan Byers deservedly knocked him down a peg and ended when one Nancy Wheeler drunkenly told him their love was bullshit at a dumb Halloween party. These events, along with the life-altering run-ins with the Upside Down, gave Steve the kick he needed to re-evaluate his life and find the courage to try to change for the better, and leave behind the apathy enforced by his parent’s neglect. His greatest teacher came in the unlikely form of Dustin Henderson; a cheerful, nerdy little kid five years his junior who he took under his wing. He saw so much of his younger self in the boy; he was passionate, excitable, and a bit of a chatterbox just like he was and exactly how Steve imagined he’d have been today if not for the pressure to adhere to his parent’s idea of a perfect son.

A lot of the bigger changes in his life were brought about by his involvement with the Upside Down, some of which were positive – like his friendship with the kids and his role as protector and his growth as a person for which he will be forever grateful for. But most of which were bad. Physically, he emerged from these events relatively unscathed – some cuts and bruises, and a mild concussion or two – nothing that couldn’t be fixed given a little time. But mentally, well, that was a different story. Steve was always on the alert and he couldn’t switch it off. It was exhausting, but he figured it was better to be safe than sorry. It was a necessary evil and Steve could handle it. But after the Starcourt ‘fire’ of ’85, that all began to change.

He'd often had nightmares after that night at the Byres’ place, the night he got dragged into all this. But recently, he was plagued night after night by the most vivid nightmares; dreams like those of monsters crawling out of the Upside Down and hunting his friends one-by-one until only Steve was left alone were now the norm. It was graphic and all too real. Steve suspected that this was a side-effect brought about by whatever the Russians injected him with. He’d hoped it wasn’t permanent because it was getting difficult for Steve to get a good night’s rest but it had been going on for months now. And if anything, the nightmares were becoming worse with time. They lingered long after he awoke and stayed with him. He couldn’t just sit around anymore. He had to do something about the horrific and traumatizing dreams and the unsettlingly familiar ebony eyes before he lost his mind.

***

On any normal day, this Munson guy was the last person Steve Harrington would seek out. He’d successfully avoided him in high school, and weaseled his way out of having to deal with him when buying drugs by bullying the freshman jocks into doing it for him instead. Hell, he didn’t even know the guys first name. Was it Frankie? Tony? Something like that. Changed though he was, he really didn’t want to deal with the weird Munson kid but he felt he was out of options. The nightmares were disrupting his daily life and affecting his overall health. Taking something might make everything worse but he had exhausted all other options. It was the only possible solution Steve could think of that he hadn’t yet tried. He wasn’t entirely sure how to go about setting up a drug deal, but figured his only discreet option was to stick a note beneath the wiper of the guy’s beat up van and hope for the best. It paid off when he called Family Video asking for Steve the following evening and awkwardly arranged a time and a place, then abruptly hung up the call.

And so, that’s how Steve found himself standing nervously in the clearing behind the high school football field in the late summer sun, periodically running a sweaty hand through his tousled hair and flip-flopping on whether or not to forget the whole thing and just book it back home before the freak show could start. Too late. The pungent smell of smoke seeping into the heavy, earthy air around him was his only warning.

“Well, well, would you look at that,” a deep voice drawled mockingly from behind Steve making him jump. “Hawkins’ Golden Boy, Steve Harrington actually showing up for a private rendezvous in the woods with the town pariah. Never thought I’d see the day.”

“Jesus Christ, Munson! Don’t fucking do that!” Steve yelped, slapping a hand over his heart and turning to face the voice behind him. He took a step back once he realized the drug dealer’s close proximity, caught off guard by intense brown eyes and mischievous grin. He felt thrown of kilter having Munson’s gaze on him; an emotion he couldn’t quite place. He was wearing his usual weird get-up of a patch-covered denim vest over a worn black leather jacket over his creepy nerd club t-shirt. Steve wondered how on earth the man didn’t sweat to death in this weather. Steve’s attention was pulled to the other boy’s lips as he brought a lit cigarette to his mouth and took a long drag, breathing it back out through his nose. Steve was unexpectantly hit with a feeling so foreign, yet achingly familiar at the sight – something he hadn’t felt, hadn’t been allowed to feel, in many years. The word pretty came to mind unbidden before he caught himself. Instantly, his father’s words echoed around his head making him cringe – I refuse to have a fucking fairy for a son!

“You alone, Harrington? Or, uh, are your boys lurking nearby?” Munson asked, breaking his intense eye-contact to survey the trees surrounding them, giving Steve the chance to shake himself from such thoughts and process the question.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, is this some kind of ambush? Getting the freak alone in a secluded area so you can beat the ever-living shit out of him?” Munson questioned, flicking his cigarette to the ground and stomping it into the dirt aggressively with his heavy boot.

“Because if it is, I might have to cut up that pretty face of yours, and wouldn’t that be a shame?” he continued with a dramatic sigh, pulling a switchblade from his jacket pocket and flipping it leisurely between deft fingers.

“Whoa, whoa, dude wait,” Steve chuckled nervously, raising his hand to placate the metalhead. At this rate he was going to start having heart palpitations – or worse yet, a heart-attack. “You’re joking, right?”

Steve’s eyes may have been deceiving him in his panic, but the drug dealer’s smile seemed to warm slightly, its cocky one-sided upturn melting away.

“I guess it depends.”

“Fuck sake, man, this isn’t high school. I’m alone. Just put the knife away, Jesus.”

The metalhead laughed good-naturedly and shoved the blade back into his pocket much to Steve’s relief.

“Just a precaution. ‘Can never be too careful ‘round here,” Munson said flippantly by way of explanation, and for a second, Steve felt a little bad for the guy. “So, what can I do ya for, Harrington?”

“I was hoping I could, uh, maybe buy…you know…” Steve stumbled, still recovering from having had a knife drawn on him.

“Weed?” Munson supplied with a raised eyebrow. “You can say it you know? No one’s around to hear and ruin your perfectly manicured image.”

Steve snorted derisively at that. “Pfft, what fucking image? I thought all this was old news. But in case you need a recap, I dropped Tommy and Carol; my girlfriend cheated on me with Byers and then dumped me; Billy Hargrove became the new “king”; my only friend was, and still is, a nerdy middle-schooler with an attitude problem,” Steve rambled, counting each failure off on his fingers, “and now I can’t even get a good night’s sleep without waking up scr-.”

Steve barely stopped himself from blurting out the real reason he was here. This Munson guy couldn’t give a shit about an ex-jock’s nightmare-induced insomnia, that’s for sure. But, something in the metalhead’s demeanor shifted. It looked a lot like…concern? As if.

He had no idea why he was even off-loading everything on this weird guy he barely knew. He didn’t like being exposed and vulnerable like that even with those closest to him. But it kind of felt good to finally let some of it out. Maybe the fact that he was a stranger made it easier. But at the same time, Steve felt he was trustworthy somehow; the look in his soft eyes and warm smile that invited Steve to spill his guts to the man.

He buried the thoughts and sighed deeply. “You know what man, it’s whatever.”

Munson let out a low whistle. “Wow. How the mighty have fallen, eh Harrington? Then, may I be the first to welcome you to the ranks of the outcasts and the freaks,” he continued with a flourished bow. “Just so you know, I’m the king here, but I could be persuaded to take you as my queen if you miss the adoration of your loyal subjects.” His eyes raked up and down Steve’s body, and Steve could feel himself flushing a deep crimson.

Christ, this was exactly the kind of thing Steve had been hoping to avoid.

“Shut up, Munson,” he spluttered through his embarrassment, scrubbing a hand roughly over his face like he could somehow wipe the scarlet from his cheeks. He’d been warned about this before – the shameless flirting. It was the main reason he made the lowerclassmen do his dirty work for him.

“Enough with the jokes. Do you have weed or not?”

“Well, um, I’d be a pretty shitty drug dealer if I didn’t.”

Seriously, this fucking guy. Steve just levelled him with a look that said he was about five seconds away from walking out on this deal.

“Okay, okay, Harrington,” Munson laughed. “I uh- usually the weed I sell to the alum of the Hawkins High elite is pretty much overpriced dirt weed, but for you Harrington, I am willing to make an exception.” He patted himself down and rummaged around in the pockets of his leather jacket before finally pulling out a plastic baggie with a celebratory ‘ah-ha!’ and handing it out for Steve to take. “This right here is the best you’ll get in the fine state of Indiana.”

Steve stepped forward to take the offered bag. “The best in Indiana? You taking pity on me, Munson.”

“Just think of it as a welcome gift. Us outcasts have to stick together, right?” Munson smiled kindly, so unlike the cocky grin he usually wore.

Steve just nodded, not really knowing how to respond. Though he hated to admit it, he was still mourning the loss of his life as a popular kid. Even though his so-called friends were major assholes, he kind of missed the attention in some fucked up way. But he’d found solace in his little ragtag, monster fighting family and felt at home with the band of misfits. He looked out for them, and they looked out for him in return. It felt right. He felt like himself for the first time in years. But he often felt he wasn’t worthy of their friendship. Not after everything he’d done; who he had been.

“So, how much?”

“Let’s say…10 bucks,” Munson replied, making a deal of thinking really hard.

Steve knew that the shit Munson sold the basketball team was 40 dollars a bag, so the good stuff should be the same if not more. There had to be something going on here – there had to be a catch.

“I don’t know much about dealing, but I’m pretty sure discounts that big are bad for business. You don’t owe me any favors and you know I’m not short on cash. I barely even know you, so what gives?”

“You really don’t remember, do you?” Munson questioned quietly, almost forlorn with the way his shoulders sagged a little.

Steve racked his brain but came up with nothing beyond passing each other in the halls. Did they ever even speak to each other? Steve didn’t think so. Still, he hazarded a guess.

“Remember? Did we, like, sit next to each other in class or something?”

Eddie quickly cleared his throat and looked away momentarily, as if trying to regain his composure. Like he was genuinely upset Steve didn’t remember. But that couldn’t be right.

He smiled sadly. “Yeah, Harrington, something like that.”

***

“Who knows, maybe the weed will help you remember. When you do, you’ll know where to find me.”

Those were Munson’s parting words to him, mumbled lowly like he was unsure or afraid that Steve might actually hear. For the rest of the day, those words looped like a broken record in his head. What a weird thing to say to a stranger. But somehow, that didn’t feel quite right. Steve wasn’t as weirded out by it as he felt he should if Munson really was a stranger. He spent the following hours after their meeting wracking his brain; trying to figure out what it all meant and to relieve the niggling feeling that he was forgetting something important. Try as he might, it was always just out of reach. It was making him agitated. Maybe a joint and a bath is just what he needed to quiet his mind before bed.

Steve lit some lavender scented candles he found in his parent’s bedroom and ran the bath, making sure to add as much bubble bath as the tub could handle. He decided to smoke while he waited for the tub to fill so he’d be blissed out in time for the bath. He lit the joint and took a deep pull. It had been a long while since he last smoked so he almost coughed up a lung for his troubles. He took it easy after that, slowly feeling the effects of the weed make his mind floaty. He stubbed out the half smoked joint for later and turned off the faucet. Then he closed the door and turned out the light, leaving only the ambient flame of the candles as company. Steve sunk into the warmth of the water and sighed. Heaven. He hung his arm over the lip of the tub and rested his head in the crook of his arm watching as the dancing flames casted swirling shadows along the walls and ceiling.

***

Steve was in a clearing somewhere in the woods. It was peaceful. The sun was beating down through the trees, stifling any breeze that dared make its way through the maze of firs. It was silent save for the distant sound of joyous laughter drifting from his left. He followed the sound to a clearing with a pond; two young boys splashing and playing in its shallows. He felt drawn to the scene before him. He took a step closer – then three, then ten, until he was right on the water’s edge behind the boys. At this distance, there was no mistaking it as surreal as it was. He was looking at himself as a child playing with a boy slightly taller, but much scrawnier with collarbones jutting out through his pale-white skin. He sported a wild mane of ebony curls and deep eyes, almost as dark as his curls and the bruises that littered his arms and sides. The sight made Steve’s stomach lurch. Kid Steve didn’t seem to mind or notice the other boy’s state.

“Uh – hello?” Steve chanced a greeting to get their attention.

But the boys ignored him and continued happily skipping stones across the pond. Their voices cut loudly through the stillness of the forest, shrieking in delight.

“Hey!” the strange boy suddenly gasped excitedly, startling Steve. “Let’s see who can make the biggest splash with the rocks!”

“Okay!” Little Steve chirped brightly.

Steve watched on as the boys hunted for the biggest rocks they could find. They walked around him as they searched, never once acknowledging his presence like he was a ghost. They tried to one-up each other every time – cheering when one made a particularly pleasing plop sound. When they ran out, the hunt for big rocks would start again.

The scruffy kid seemed to be winning, so little Steve moved to the other side of the pond to find an even bigger rock. He easily found one – one much too heavy for a kid that age. His arms strained as he pulled with all his might. He managed to get it far enough off the ground to stumble back to the water with it, but it was a struggle. Puffing and panting, he finally made it to the water’s edge – where the stones underfoot were coated in a layer of slimy green algae. Steve could quickly see where this was going.

“Hey! Look at this rock I found!” shouted little Steve, trying to get the other boy’s attention. “Hey, Ed-”

Just at that moment, little Steve lost his footing on the slippery rock and his grip on his find. The large rock crashed down right on his bare feet. He let out a howl of pain that had big Steve wincing.

The scream alerted the other boy who came rushing over, almost in a panic.

“Shhh, shhh, it’s okay,” the wild kid said softly, rubbing little Steve’s back as he cried. “What happened, Stevie?”

“I- I- dropped the r-rock,” he sobbed through hiccupping breaths and holding his feet. “It hurts r-r-really bad.”

The other kid gently took little Steve’s feet carefully to inspect the damage. Little Steve flinched when he touched the reddest part.

“Good news, Stevie! There’s no blood and it doesn’t look like it’s broken, but just in case, how about I give you a piggy-back back home?”

Little Steve nodded, his sobbing quieting to sniffling. The older kid carefully wiped little Steve’s tears with his thumb.

“Here, hop on,” he said, turning his back to little Steve and crouching down for him to climb on.

Steve was in shock. No one was ever so caring and gentle with him as a kid – not even his parents. But even more of a shock was that this didn’t feel like a dream; it felt more like a memory. An old forgotten memory buried deep in the recesses of his mind that had finally dug its way to the surface. Steve blinked and felt something wet run down his face. He touched his hand to his face and realized they were tears. He stared at his hand in disbelief. As the boys passed him, he heard little Steve mumble.

“Thanks, Eddie. You’re the best.” Eddie?

“Anything for you, Stevie.”

He watched them disappear through the trees and was about to follow when a disembodied warm touch to the forehead had him flinching.

When he opened his eyes, he was somewhere black dark. He couldn’t discern anything around him. It was like a void that had greedily absorbed all light – empty of anything but echoing sobs. He followed the sound to a boy. He thought it might be the boy from before, but this time he was wearing a formal, dated top hat and held a shiny golden pocket watch open in his hand. His back was to Steve, shoulders hunched and heaving. Steve approached the boy slowly so as not to startle him.

“Hey. Hey, don’t cry. Everything’s okay,” Steve tried to console him, a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

The boy turned to face him with big wet eyes looking lost and hurt. There was no mistaking it, it was the boy from the dream-memory.

“No, it’s not. I was waiting for you, but you forgot about me, Stevie.”

Steve woke with a gasp, splashing lukewarm bath water over the side.

Eddie. Eddie Munson.

***

In a haste, Steve threw on his clothes, not caring that he was still wet from the bath.

“Who knows, maybe the weed will help you remember. When you do, you’ll know where to find me.”

The memories of that period of his life were slowly filtering through bit by bit. A lot of it was still disjointed, but he could pick out bits and pieces – enough to know where to go.

As he ran out the back towards the woods, he wondered how he could have ever forgotten Eddie when he was his whole world at one time; an escape from the cold, sterile place he had no choice but to call home and from the so-called parents that abandoned him at the first chance they had. Steve was safe in the leafy cover of the woods with Eddie. Safe from the near constant disregard and belittlement he suffered daily. No matter what he did or how well he did it, it was never enough for them; because he was the child they never even wanted in the first place. But Eddie wanted him.

He remembered now.

He remembered Eddie teaching him about the different types of clouds, spending hours just looking at them and trying to make out the shapes of animals and people, distracting Steve from his apathetic homelife and giggling until their sides ached. He remembered Eddie quietly singing while he held him that time when his father made good on his threat to beat the queer out of Steve. He remembered that Eddie loved him when no one else did; loved and accepted Steve just as he was unconditionally.

Steve tried to hold it back, just a little, but the pain and guilt and panic ravaged his body, pumping adrenaline relentlessly through his veins. He was gasping for breath through his tears, lungs burning. He stumbled out the back garden gate, into the moon-lit woods beyond.

He remembered.

He was the best thing that ever happened to Steve, the only person in the whole world who loved and cared for Steve. But then he was ripped from him. That evening in early spring when everything changed. His father’s rage at finding out; his mother’s passive indifference and compliance; his own fear and desperation as he was dragged away, his mother’s sharp talons digging into his upper arm. The days after when Steve cried and cried and cried, pleading with his mother to let him see Eddie only to be locked in his room until he could learn to behave. Until finally he broke. It was too painful to remember; too much for such a small child. How else could he go on without the only light in his young life. It hardened him; made him forget.

Steve ran and ran like his life depended on it. It did. It wasn’t much farther, just around the next tree and –

Steve froze, breathing ragged.

There, sitting cross-legged on top of their rock, was Eddie. In all his theatrical glory complete with the top hat and the old pocket watch swinging on its gold chain around his finger – just like Steve now remembered. His heart clenched and fresh tears fell.

“Stevie, you made it!” he said, his voice cautiously hopeful.

“Eddie,” Steve breathed and the dam burst open.

“Eddie, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” he cried, shaking. “I didn’t- I forgot- I-.” He couldn’t get the words out; couldn’t put all the thoughts, all the memories, all the emotions into words. All the shit Steve had said and done to him while in high school flashed in his mind’s eye, mixing with the fractured memories and overloading his brain. All he could say was sorry. And it wasn’t enough. He didn’t deserve Eddie after all he did.

Steve wasn’t sure when Eddie climbed down from the rock, but he knew he had when he was bundled up in his tight embrace, leaking tears and snot onto his t-shirt as he cried harder into his shoulder. Steve didn’t even think that was possible, but in hindsight he thought years of trauma and repressed feelings would do that to a guy. He couldn’t do anything to fight it, so he let himself get swept up in it, holding on for dear life should Eddie somehow disappear. It felt kind of cathartic to finally let it all out.

“Shhh, Stevie, it’s okay. It’s okay,” he whispered into Steve’s hair as he gently rocked him. Steve recognized the wobble in his voice enough to know that Eddie was crying too.

After an embarrassingly long time, Steve emerged from the safety of Eddie’s arms bashfully with one more sorry on his lips. They both took a second to sniffle and wipe their tears, trying to keep their composure. When their eyes finally met again, they both broke out into a fit of watery giggles.

Steve eventually broke the silence when the laughter died down and he felt he could speak without breaking down again. Looking at the boy in front of him, so many thoughts, so many questions raced through his mind. Steve didn’t know where to start. Why didn’t you tell me who you were? What happened after that night? Were you okay? Were you safe? And most importantly: Can we ever go back to the way we were? However, the question that came wasn’t the one he’d expected to ask.

“How did you know I’d come here?”

Eddie just looked at him with so much love and happiness and relief.

“I didn’t. I just hoped and waited,” he smiled. “Every day.”

#I actually finished it!#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve stranger things #eddie stranger things #stranger things fanfic #stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #hushbats' fanfic #fanfic

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